Acceptance of Diversity as a Building Block of Social Cohesion: Individual and Structural Determinants

Abstract

High levels of social cohesion have been shown to be beneficial both for social entities and for their residents. It is therefore not surprising that scholars from several disciplines investigate which factors contribute to or hamper social cohesion at various societal levels. In recent years, the question of how individuals deal with the increasing diversity of their neighborhoods and society as a whole has become of particular interest when examining cohesion. The present study takes this a step further by combining sociological and psychological approaches in investigating whether the group-level acceptance of diversity, a core feature of cohesive societies, is related to prevailing mentalities of individuals once the social structure of a community is accounted for. We hypothesize that after controlling for individual sociodemographic and for structural variables, three individual characteristics play an important role for the level of acceptance of diversity in a given entity. We propose that individual intergroup anxiety (IGA) acts as a motor of the rejection of diversity whereas individual empathy should act as a safeguard. Furthermore, we propose that right-leaning political orientation (PO) has a negative influence on the acceptance of diversity. This study is based on a large, representative sample of the German general population (N1 = 2,869). To draw comparisons among different social entities, the sample was divided by federal states (N2 = 16). Data were analyzed by using a two-step approach for analyzing group-level outcomes in multilevel models. The analyses confirmed our hypothesis that intergroup anxiety at the individual level hampers the acceptance of diversity in a given sociopolitical entity. Furthermore, we found that intergroup anxiety is impacted by the economic situation in a federal state (measured per capita gross domestic product), as economic weakness intensified the fear of others. Surprisingly, neither empathy nor political orientation played a role for the acceptance of diversity. Implications for future research on social cohesion as well as for the work of policy makers are discussed.

Sozialer Zusammenhalt im internationalen Vergleich: ein Überblick über zentrale Maße und Befunde

“…Moreover, its concept and methodology have also been applied to Germany at the federal state level (Dragolov et al 2016, Ch. 7), regional level (Arant et al 2017;Dragolov et al 2019;Follmer et al 2020;Boehnke et al 2022), and neighborhood level (Arant et al 2016). To the best of our knowledge, this application of one and the same concept at various socio-spatial levels ranging from major world regions to city areas is unmatched in cohesion research.…”

Youth and social cohesion in times of the COVID pandemic: Most negatively affected? Most resilient?

“…This definition of social cohesion has been adopted in the Social Cohesion Radar of Bertelsmann Stiftung (see Figure 1), which the present study draws on. It has been applied to comparisons of cohesion across countries (see Dragolov et al, 2016, for a comparison of 34 Western societies, Dragolov et al, 2018, for a comparison of 22 Asian societies), regions of Germany (see Arant et al, 2017, for a comparison of 79 regions), and neighborhoods (see Arant et al, 2016, for a comparison of neighborhoods of Bremen). The Baden-Württemberg studies reported here belong to the series looking at subnational units within Germany.…”

Sociology of Gender, Social Cohesion and Cultural Diversity Struggles of Susu-Guinean Emigrants in Kambia District, Northern Sierra Leone

“…A concerted effort to wrestle with these affairs be made if Kambians are to imagine a socially cohesiveness society in which folk's every day experiences are acknowledged and not taken for granted. As Arant et al (2021) argues that social cohesion is about getting by and getting on with the mundanities of everyday life and that "Cohesive societies is related to prevailing mentalities of individuals once the social structure of a community is accounted for". It is at these mundane thresholds and mentalities that Kambians need to zoom in and pay attention to the perpetual constraints with which many Susu-Guineans continue to contend.…”